An 11-year-old intact female Green Iguana was presented to the Cornell University Hospital for Animals Exotics Service on 8/25/15 for failing to lay eggs following a 2.5-month history of showing signs of reproductive activity, including inappetance and behavioral changes. Despite appropriate husbandry changes to encourage egg laying, no oviposition had occurred and no improvement was noted in her clinical signs. A recheck coelomic ultrasound revealed multiple persistent follicles. The sonographic findings and lack of clinical improvement were consistent with reproductive stasis.
Surgical treatment was pursued and revealed pre-ovulatory stasis with coelomitis. An ovariectomy is considered the treatment of choice for pre-ovulatory stasis, as pre-ovulatory follicles will not respond to medical management.2 In cases where clinical findings indicate stasis but are unclear as to whether stasis is pre- or post-ovulatory, surgery should be considered because it can be used to definitively determine whether the stasis is pre-or post-ovulatory, and can also be used to treat either condition. The patient recovered well despite her poor prognosis and surgical complications.